Personal-Space – for the press – DE

If you could point a telescope anywhere in the sky, where would you look? The ‘Personal Space’ web application allows you to make a direct and personal connection to the universe by linking significant events in your own life with what was above you in the sky at that moment.

The GLORIA project aims to bring astronomy to anyone with an Internet connection, by making a global network of robotic telescopes available for use by the public. But being given the opportunity to observe anywhere in the universe is a bit like being faced with a blank canvas – where do you start?

Personal Space (http://personal-space.eu) is a response to this challenge that emerged from an art-science collaboration between an astronomer and an artist.

Personal Space is an online invitation to connect with and explore the universe in an intuitive way by presenting beautiful astronomical images of the sky overhead at key moments and places of personal significance. By inputting a date, time and location (e.g. birth date and place) through a web interface, the user will be supplied with an image of the part of the universe that was directly above them at that significant moment in their life. It also allows individuals to see when `their’ piece of sky intersects with that of another user or with an historical event. GLORIA scientists are building an archive of stories by geo-mapping political and historical events to the sky above. The archival sky images are provided by the Sloan Digitised Sky Survey. As well as being beautiful in their own right, the images can be overlaid with information about the stars, nebulae and galaxies within them, acting as a launchpad for further exploration and inspiration.

GLORIA is a three-year project financed by the Seventh Framework Program of the European Union (FP7/2007-2012) under agreement number 283783. The project, started in October 2011, involves 13 institutions from 8 countries.